Exergy participated on April 27th at the inauguration ceremony of EDC’s first geothermal brine recovery power plant held in Brgy. Ilomavis in Kidapawan City, Cotabato province.
The event was led by EDC Deputy Chief Operating Officer Jerome H. Cainglet, Head of Business Development Marvin Kenneth S. Bailon, and Mount Apo Geothermal Project Facility Head Romy Kee, in the presence of Director Mario C. Marasigan of the Department of Energy’s Electric Power Industry Management Bureau (EPIMB), other government authorities, and representatives from EDC’s Indigenous Peoples host community, the Manobo Apao Descendants Ancestral Domain Claim of Mount Apo (MADADMA).
The new ORC unit was synchronized to the Mindanao electricity grid on March 12 then passed compliance testing by system operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines on March 25 and it is now delivering 3.6 MW of carbon-free electricity to the grid.
EDC Deputy Chief Operating Officer Jerome H. Cainglet who took part at the ceremony commented:
“The M3 binary plant is part of EDC’s commitment to continuously power the Mindanao region’s growing economy with 100% clean energy to lessen its dependence on fossil fuels such as coal that have primarily caused our warming planet”. Regarding the project execution he added : “Thank you, Exergy and all our other partners, for being enablers of our decarbonization mission by helping us deliver our Mindanao-3 binary project after only 13 months,”
The Exergy ORC unit was designed and supplied in less than 12 months complying with strict deadlines. As emphasized by EDC, “the power plant expansion started construction in the first part of 2021 – and that was the height of the coronavirus pandemic, hence, the safety protocols needed for workers on-site had been strictly enforced and heightened. Yet despite that, the completion of the binary plant was still well-within timeframe”.
While attending the inauguration ceremony Marco Frassinetti, Exergy’s Sales Director commented:
“We are very proud of the successful completion of the first brine recovery power plant in the Philippines for EDC. This project demonstrates how pushing innovation, both in exploitation technologies and power plant design and technologies, can provide more sustainable and efficient solutions to better harness geothermal resources and improve the economics of geothermal projects”
The ORC cycle operates by recovering the waste geothermal brine available from 103 MW Mindanao 1 and 2 existing steam power plants and converts it into electricity through a turbine before reinjecting into the reservoir. Exergy’s technology utilizes the unique Radial Outflow Turbine configuration, a first in the Philippines, which can produce geothermal power at higher efficiency, and proved to be very effective and reliable in more than 450 MWe geothermal fleet installed worldwide.
EDC is the world’s largest vertically integrated geothermal energy producer, boasting over 40 years of history and over 1,180 MW of geothermal capacity in its portfolio. EDC has made the Philippines the third largest geothermal energy producer in the world and an acknowledged leader in wet steam field technology for over four decades.
The new ORC installation will enhance the efficiency and productivity of the existing geothermal field without any additional environmental impact. Aside from providing clean and reliable power to the Mindanao grid, the project will also avoid around 25,000 tons of equivalent carbon dioxide yearly using geothermal energy.
